Principal Investigator/Program Director (Last, first, middle): De Groot, Anne, S. Abstract Vaccines have had an enormous positive impact on global health saving literally millions of lives and preventing pandemics. Diseases such as polio, measles, mumps, tetanus and smallpox have nearly been eradicated by the use of vaccines. Now with the threat of global pandemics and bioterrorism there is an increased awareness of the value of vaccines. Given the global spread of infectious disease, the emergence of virulent new pathogens and the escalating threat of bio-terrorism, we propose to initiate a Vaccine Renaissance Conference. The Institute of Immunology and Informatics (I'Cubed) at the University of Rhode Island will host and organize a three-day conference for leading vaccine researchers and developers. This event will take place in October 2011, 2012, and 2013 in Providence, RI. The mission of the I'Cubed is to improve human and animal health by applying the power of immunomics --informatics, genomics and immunology -- to the design of better vaccines and therapeutics. The I'Cubed was founded by Annie De Groot, M.D. with a 13M dollar NIH U-19 grant to accelerate vaccine discovery in the areas of infectious diseases and bio-defense using state-of-the-art bioinformatics tools. The Institute is led by Dr. De Groot and Dr. Denice Spero, both highly experienced researchers and leaders in the field of drug discovery and both highly skilled at organizing scientific events. The primary objective of the 2011-2013 Vaccine Renaissance Conference is to provide a forum for the review of current progress in the research and development of vaccines, including new tools and techniques for accelerating vaccine discovery. The second objective of the meeting is to provide a networking opportunity for the vaccine R & D community nationwide, therefore creating important opportunities for collaborations between academic researchers and vaccine industry leaders. National and regional vaccine industry and academic leaders will be invited to speak about recent vaccine developments in their area of expertise. This Vaccine Renaissance Conference at the I'Cubed will follow three highly successful Vaccine Renaissance conferences which took place in 2004, 2006 and 2009 in Providence, Rhode Island. A fourth Conference is planned for October 2010. The global appeal of the Conference attracted more than 100 participants each year not only from the United States, but also from around the world.